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Show Mo-good Plow The hammer clattered against the stone of the wall, But Alvin, he took heed where the hammer fell. ^There's some can lift the hammer," said the smith, And some can strike," and then he said an oath So terrible that Alvin winced to hear. "I'm shut of you," said the smith. "What's iron for? To be hot and soft for a man of strength to beat, To turn the fat of your empty flesh to meat For the years to eat." * When the smith was gone, poor Alvin like to died, For what was a smith that couldn't strike the black? A maker, that's what the redbreast said he'd be, And now unmade before he'd fair begun. "I know," he whispered, "I know what must be done." He took the hammer from the wallside heap And blew the fire till flames came leapin back And gathered every scrap at the fire's side And loud he cried: "Here is the maken that you said to make! Here in my hand are the tools you said to take! Here is the crucible, and here's the fire, And here are my hands with all they know of shape." Into the crucible he cast the scrap And set the pot in the flames a-leapin higher. "Melt!" he shouted. "Melt so I can make!" For the redbreast bird had told him how: A livin plow. The black went soft in the clay, the black went red, The black went white and poured when he tipped the pot. Into the mold he poured, and the iron sang With the heat and the cold, with the soft and the hard and the form That forced. When he broke the mold it rang, And the shape of the plow was curved and sharp as it ought. But the iron, it was black, oh, it was dead, No power in it but the iron's own, As mute as stone. He sat among the shards of the broken clay And wondered what the redbird hadn't said. Or had he talked to the bird at all today? And now he thought of it, was it really red? And maybe he ought to change the mold somehow, Or pour it cool, or hotten up the forge. But the more he studied it the less he knew, For the plow was shaped aright, though cold and dark: He knew his work. |